Gastronomy

What Samuel Johnson's 18th-century dictionary was to the English language the late Alan Davidson's "Oxford Companion to Food" is to present-day gastronomy: a far-reaching, erudite, amusing and occasionally idiosyncratic guide covering more of its subject than anything published before. Mr. Davidson, a widely traveled British diplomat, spent 20 years compiling the first (1999) edition, 80% of which he wrote himself....